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For ancient Israel, the Temple of Solomon-indeed, the Temple Mount and all Jerusalem=was a symbol as well as a reality, a mythopoeic realization of heaven on earth, Paradise, the Garden of Eden.
After King David's conquest of Jerusalem, the site became the "City of David." But it was much more than the patrimony of the king and his household. It was also the sacred center where Yahweh, the personal name of the Israelite deity, established his house and household. Solomon built the deity's house-the Temple-and the king's house-the palace--side by side on the acropolis, the sacred mountain known as Mt. Zion. This cosmic mountain linked heaven and earth (as axis munda); from here order was established at creation and was continually renewed and maintained through rituals and ceremonies. It was here that Adam and Eve were buried, according to Jewish tradition.
The whole drew on celestial archetypes that were common to ancient Near Eastern cultures. Cosmic mountains, for example, were traditionally situated above the primordial waters (the "deep"), which, in an orderly cosmos, became the source of the sacred rivers that watered the four quarters of the earth.1
In the Yahwist's ( J2Z account of creation (Genesis 2:46-3:24), written during the United Monarchy (tenth century B.C.E.) or shortly thereafter, the soil is watered not by rainfall but by the flow of freshwater that rises from below: "A flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the soil" (Genesis 2:6).3 God then plants a garden in Eden and causes to grow there "various trees that were a delight to the eye and good for eating, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and bad" (Genesis 2:89). A river rises in Eden to irrigate the garden and then divides into four streams that water the quarters of the earth, where there is gold, bdellium and red carnelian. It is not by chance that the Yahwist names one of the rivers of Paradise the Gihon: During the First Temple period (tenth century B.C.E.-586 B.C.E.), the Gihon Spring (literally, the "Gusher") was the primary water source for Jerusalem. The sacred waters spring forth from their source below the City of David and...